


Unconditioned Response

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: hoodie_time, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>When you touch something hot, you jerk back before your brain registers the heat or the pain.</i> Sam comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unconditioned Response

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doylescordy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=doylescordy).



When you touch something hot, you jerk back before your brain registers the heat or the pain. Dean opens the door and his small silver knife leaps from his boot to his hand to the meat of the shoulder, and only then does he realize what he's looking at. Who.

Dean shoves cold smooth glass between his emotions and his reactions (bits of himself ground fine and melted in a crucible in hellfire), sticks the bloody knife in his pocket, and leads the way into the kitchen. Lisa has this toy that she fills with oil and pumps air into so that the oil comes out in a fine mist, because nonstick spray is useful and aerosol cans are evil or some such thing; Dean dumps the canola oil into the sink and goes into the garage and comes back with a jar of holy oil and an assortment of other weapons. A spritz of holy oil and a match does exactly what any other grease fire does, no resemblance to what the Molotov did to Michael, and Dean runs through the rest of the list, but archangel, shapeshifter, and hallucination were the only ones at all likely, so he lets the glass slip away.

Dean claps Adam on the shoulder, awkwardly (he isn't sure what to do with a baby brother who's a complete stranger), and turns to look at Sam and when his brain catches up he's enfolded in Sam's arms, Sam who's here and warm and alive and murmuring "It's okay, I'm here, I won't leave you, I've got you."

The thing with Lisa was working only through pure cussedness on her part and Dean's, and once Sam turns up, it holds together just long enough for Dean to sketch a whole bunch of symbols Sam describes all over the house, Adam double-checking with color commentary because Sam can't see very well out of the black eyes Dean gave him at the discovery that Sam was only downstairs a month or so by topside time and the first thing he'd done on getting out wasn't come reassure Dean. In Dean's defense, he would have kept it to the first punch, the one that happened before he was aware of what he'd just learned, had the first thing Sam'd done be bust Adam out (it was) and the second come see Dean (it wasn't). Then Dean kisses Lisa goodbye and promises to call Ben every day and they drop Adam back at his Midwest state college and it's just Dean and Sam and the open road.

Inside of three days, Sam has a new habit: his left arm is always sprawled across the top of the seat, so that if Dean leans back just a bit he can feel Sam there. It does wonders for Dean's driving: so much easier to pay attention to the road when he doesn't have to keep checking whether Sam's still in the shotgun seat.

A week later the door to Dean's room opens and he's got the gun from under his pillow trained on the intruder and then sees it's Sam. Sam drops the bag of Thai takeout on Dean's bed like usual and flops down next to Dean like not usual and Dean's glad enough to have Sam close enough to drop food in his hair (not that either of them does, it's just, they could) that he doesn't insist Sam go back to his own bed.

Dean has a particularly bad night one night, dipping into a REM cycle and not managing to fight his way out of sleep long enough even to figure out whether he left the bottle of bourbon within arm's reach. Then something warm and heavy settles over him and twelve hours later Dean gets hold of enough consciousness to realize it's Sam.

Somehow the motels only ever have single kings available after that.


End file.
